Gorges State Park - 9.18.10

Yesterday, we headed down to Gorges State Park, close to the SC border, for a 6-7 mile hike.  We decided to take the Rainbow Falls trail and parked in the appropriate, and insanely packed, parking lot.  We then headed down what started off as the most boring trail ever built.  The first mile or so is a wide, gravel-packed trail that just goes down and down.  Once you leave the park boundary, though, it gets better.  The gravel ends, you start hearing and seeing water, and the trail then actually gets pretty rocky, rooty, and steep.

We were starting to feel better about this trail until we noticed that there were a bunch of college kids from Clemson all over the place, wearing bathing suits and flip flops.  Along the way, there were some nice river views, and once we got to the falls, they were beautiful.  I will never go back to this park, though.  The college kids sucked.  Apparently this is a Clemson hangout.  The little bastards were everywhere, and they were loud and obnoxious.  During our hike back, they were yelling all along the trail, and one of them was blowing a bubuzela.  Really?!?!?  I can't blame it all on the Clemson kids, though, there were also some total rednecks yelling.  We surmised that they had a compound of trailers, with no phones, so that's how they were used to communicating.

Anyway, I don't recommend going to Gorges S.P., unless you're an obnoxious college kid, which I'm not....anymore.

Some pics:

It was a surprisingly large waterfall

The guy on the right in the khaki shorts stood there for about 20 minutes, contemplating, taking off his shoes, then socks, then putting his socks in his pockets, then adjusting how his socks were in his pockets, then sitting down, then standing back up, never jumping.  The kids were making fun of him and just went right past him, jumping in.